How long should a reel be? Under 3 minutes on Instagram, longer on TikTok

On Instagram, reels under 10 seconds earn the most views against the creator's own median, at 1.02x, but every length up to 3 minutes lands within 2% of it, so any length under 3 minutes works. Reels over 3 minutes drop to 0.91x. On TikTok, 3 to 10 minute videos earn the most, at 1.22x the creator's median.

We compared each video with its own creator's median video, so a few big accounts do not decide the answer. The sample is 10,510,431 public Instagram reels and 3,272,302 TikToks from accounts with 1,000 or more followers, posted from August 2025 to September 2026.

Most pages that rank for this question give a range such as 7 to 15 seconds, or 45 to 60 seconds, from experience or from one pooled sample. Socialinsider's 45 to 60 second answer reads the median views of all reels in each length bracket, with 4,700 for reels of 1 to 30 seconds and 10,374 for 45 to 60 seconds. Pooled medians like these favor the lengths that big accounts post, as the table further down shows. This page adds the same-creator comparison, the cut by follower count, TikTok next to Instagram, and the lengths creators post.

How long should a reel be on Instagram

For each reel we divided its plays by the median plays of the same creator's reels in the sample. A reel at 1.00x got a normal number of plays for that creator. We then took the median of that ratio for each length band.

This table splits the Instagram result by follower count. "Beats median" is the share of reels in that band that got more plays than their creator's median reel, and the last six columns are the median plays against the creator's own median.

• Reels under 10 seconds are the best band on Instagram by a small margin, at 1.02x, and they beat their creator's median 51.6% of the time.
• The edge for reels under 10 seconds grows with account size, from 1.01x for creators with 1,000 to 10,000 followers to 1.06x for creators with over 500,000.
• Reels of 90 seconds to 3 minutes also reach 1.02x, so a long reel under the 3-minute line does not cost plays.
• Reels of 3 to 10 minutes fall to 0.91x and beat their creator's median only 42.2% of the time, and reels over 10 minutes fall to 0.76x.
• Only 1.9% of reels in the sample run past 3 minutes, so few creators pay this cost.

The drop past 3 minutes matches Instagram's own rule. The Help Center page on recording a reel says reels can run up to 20 minutes and that "reels over 3 minutes won't be recommended to new audiences". A reel past that line reaches mostly the people who already follow the account.

The gaps inside the 10 second to 3 minute range are 2% or less, so pick the length the idea needs. Our Instagram algorithm study found that a Collab post got 1.52 times the views of the same creator's own reels, a far bigger gap than any length under 3 minutes shows.

Best length for a TikTok video

We ran the same comparison on TikTok. Photo posts are left out.

• On TikTok, videos of 90 seconds to 3 minutes get 1.08x their creator's median, and videos of 3 to 10 minutes get 1.22x.
• The 3 to 10 minute band sits above 1.15x in every follower tier, from 1.16x for nano creators to 1.25x for micro and mid-size creators.
• 10 to 29 second videos, the most common lengths on TikTok, sit slightly below the creator's median at 0.98x.
• Videos over 10 minutes are 0.2% of the sample, so their 1.13x rests on 5,797 videos.

TikTok's Creator Rewards Program pays only for videos that are at least one minute long, which gives creators with 10,000+ followers a reason to post longer. The gain also shows up for creators with 1,000 to 10,000 followers, who cannot join the program. Our TikTok algorithm study measured length within the same creator and month with a different model and found the same order, with length the factor that moved views most.

Same creator, short against long

The tables above compare each video with the creator's overall median. A stricter test takes creators who posted at least two videos in a band and at least two in the 10 to 19 second band, and compares the two medians for each creator. "Win" is the share of those creators whose median in the band beat their 10 to 19 second median, and "ratio" is the typical creator's band median divided by their 10 to 19 second median.

• On Instagram, 55.1% of 100,276 creators got more plays on their under-10-second reels than on their 10 to 19 second reels, and the typical gain was 6%.
• From 20 seconds to 3 minutes, Instagram creators split about evenly, so neither length wins for most of them.
• Only 41.2% of Instagram creators did better with their 3 to 10 minute reels, and the typical creator got 0.84x.
• On TikTok, the share of creators who did better rises with every step in length, from 51.1% at 20 to 29 seconds to 68.2% at 3 to 10 minutes.
• For the 7,555 TikTok creators with both lengths, a 3 to 10 minute video got a median 1.59x the views of the same creator's 10 to 19 second videos.

Why other studies say 45 to 60 seconds

If you pool every reel and read the median plays for each length, longer reels look far better. The pooled columns below are the median views of all videos in each band, from the same sample without the per-creator step, and the other columns repeat the per-creator result.

• Pooled together, reels of 90 seconds to 3 minutes get 2.2 times the median plays of reels under 10 seconds (18,315 against 8,383).
• Against each creator's own median, both bands get 1.02x.
• The pooled gap comes from who posts long reels, since creators with over 1 million followers post a median reel of 45 seconds and creators with 1,000 to 10,000 followers post 32 seconds.

A study that compares lengths across accounts mostly measures which accounts post which length. To decide your own length, compare your own reels with each other.

Three creators whose results depend on length

We picked these from creators who posted many videos in both short and long bands. We checked each public profile in the browser on October 15, 2026.

Christina, a dog groomer in the UK, posts long "day in the life" videos about her grooming work, and her profile groups 161 of them in one playlist. Her 3 to 10 minute videos got a median 143,200 views, 3.6 times her 10 to 19 second clips. Her profile showed 214.4K followers on October 15.

Yasemin posts long reading vlogs and jewelry jar videos in Turkish. 68 of her 98 videos ran 3 to 10 minutes, with a median of 91,150 views, 6.1 times her 10 to 19 second videos. She had 36.7K followers on October 15.

Roberto Valenzuela posts reels from Rancho la Alemania, a farm in Hermosillo, Sonora, his profile says. His 14 reels of 10 to 19 seconds got a median 32,719 plays, and his 28 reels of 3 to 10 minutes got 10,896, a third as many. He had 50.2K followers on October 15.

All three post long videos often, so their long medians come from many videos. The two TikTok creators gained from length, and the Instagram creator lost plays with it, which is the platform split in the tables above.

Average Instagram reel length

The median reel in our sample is 36 seconds long and the mean is 54 seconds. The median TikTok is 25 seconds and the mean 47 seconds.

• 15 seconds is the most common length on both apps, with 310,002 reels and 252,042 TikToks at exactly 15 seconds.
• 42.7% of reels and 55.3% of TikToks run under 30 seconds.
• Both apps show a spike at 1 minute, and reels show a second spike at 90 seconds, the reel limit until January 2025.
• Bigger accounts post longer videos, and on TikTok the median video from a creator with over 1 million followers runs 39 seconds, more than twice the 18 seconds from a creator with 1,000 to 10,000 followers.

How long can a reel be

These are the limits each app states in its own help pages, read on October 15, 2026.

• The Instagram Help Center says you can record and edit reels up to 20 minutes, and that reels over 3 minutes won't be recommended to new audiences.
• Instagram raised the upload limit from 90 seconds to 3 minutes on January 17, 2025, when Adam Mosseri posted that the old limit was "just too short" for longer stories.
• TikTok's camera tools page says videos you record in TikTok can be up to 10 minutes long, and videos you upload up to 60 minutes.

What to do with this

For creators

• On Instagram, keep reels under 3 minutes, and within that range use the length the idea needs, because length moves plays by 2% or less there.
• If you want to test short reels on Instagram, a reel under 10 seconds beat the same creator's 10 to 19 second reels for 55% of creators.
• On TikTok, try videos of 90 seconds or longer if you have the material, since 3 to 10 minute videos beat the same creator's short clips for 68% of creators.
• To check your own account, take your videos that are at least a week old, find your median, and see which length bands sit above it, as in our guide to comparing reel performance at the same age.
• For what counts as a breakout against your own median, see how many views is viral.

For brands

• Do not ask an Instagram creator for a reel over 3 minutes if you want reach beyond their followers, because Instagram will not recommend it to new audiences.
• On TikTok, a creator who already posts long videos well may give a product more time on screen without losing views.
• Look at a creator's own videos at the length you plan to book, because Christina's long videos got 3.6 times the views of her short ones.
• Virev creator search covers 180M+ creators on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube and shows each one's recent videos with their views, so you can see which formats work for a creator before you book.

Start a 3-day trial to run your first search.

How we measured, and what can be wrong

• The Instagram sample is the reels set of our Instagram algorithm study, which holds public creator accounts with 1,000 or more followers and removes brands, shops, media and giveaway posts.
• From that set we kept reels with a length and at least 1 play, from creators with 5 or more such reels, which leaves 10,510,431 reels from 301,713 creators.
• Instagram reel plays come from our read of the public play count, and the length is the video length Instagram reports.
• The TikTok sample is the video set of our TikTok algorithm study, which holds public creator accounts with 1,000 or more followers and 10 or more videos and removes videos tagged as ads or giveaways.
• From that set we dropped photo posts and kept videos with at least 1 view from creators with 5 or more videos, which leaves 3,272,302 videos from 53,160 creators.
• Follower tiers use the follower count at our read, with nano at 1,000 to 10,000, micro at 10,000 to 100,000, mid at 100,000 to 500,000, macro at 500,000 to 1 million and mega over 1 million.
• Views keep growing after posting, and the videos had different ages at our read.
• When we compared each video only with the same creator's videos from the same month, the pattern held, with reels of 3 to 10 minutes at 0.95x and TikToks of 3 to 10 minutes at 1.12x.
• When we kept only reels 7 to 89 days old at the read, reels of 3 to 10 minutes got 0.92x.
• The sample holds only videos that were still public when we read them, so a creator who deleted weak long videos, or weak short ones, would make that length look better than it was.
• Creators choose a length for each idea, and a creator may save a long video for a strong topic, so part of the long-video gain on TikTok may come from the topic.
• Instagram reels in the sample include Collab posts and paid partnerships, and without them the result is the same, with 1.03x under 10 seconds, 1.01x at 90 seconds to 3 minutes and 0.89x at 3 to 10 minutes.
• Short reels loop, so if Instagram counts a replay as another play, part of the edge for reels under 10 seconds may come from replays.
• Our crawler collects accounts for creator marketing, so the sample holds more active creators than each app as a whole, and some news and TV pages that call themselves creators.
• The study does not cover YouTube Shorts, because the exports it uses hold Instagram and TikTok only.

Download the data

The tables behind every chart are in one CSV: how-long-should-a-reel-be-2026.csv. Each row has a table name, a platform, a follower tier and a length band. The tables are length_vs_own_median (videos, creators, share of videos, median views against the creator's own median, share beating the creator's median), paired_vs_10_19s, pooled_median_views and length_posted. Please cite "Virev, October 2026" and link this page.